Officers Kill Man After 3-Hour Chase

SIMI VALLEY —  A man described as depressed and struggling with financial problems led authorities on a three-county auto chase that ended Monday morning when police shot him to death as he pointed a pistol at them.

The dead man was identified as Stephen Bayer, 39, of Apple Valley. While his family stood down the street pleading to speak to Bayer, he held a gun on himself, then stepped out of his car and aimed a loaded .45-caliber pistol at SWAT officers, authorities said.

After the shooting, grieving family members quickly lashed out at police.

“I could have said, ‘Steve, give me the gun’ and he would have done it,” said Sid Bayer, the dead man’s father. “But they murdered my son. They took a person’s life like it belonged to them and they are going to cover it up. . . . It didn’t have to happen. All they had to do was let me talk to him.”

Simi Valley officers, who recently underwent training in how to deal with armed, suicidal suspects, believe Bayer may have wanted to die and purposely threatened officers so they would shoot him. It was a classic case of suicide by cop, said Simi Valley Lt. Neal Rein.

“There is no question in my mind that’s what he was trying to do,” Rein said. “We’re very convinced he was suicidal and despite all the efforts we put forth to prevent it, he was intent on that happening.”

The chase began just after 11 p.m. in San Bernardino County’s Apple Valley area, where San Bernardino County Deputy Jeff Andrade noticed Bayer’s car parked alongside the road.

“Its lights were out and it looked either broken down or suspicious,” Andrade said.

Andrade and his partner shined a light on Bayer’s car, which prompted him to start shouting obscenities at the deputies before speeding away, officials said. The three-hour chase stretched from Interstate 10 to the northbound San Gabriel River Freeway, west on the Foothill and Ventura freeways, north on the Golden State Freeway and finally west on the Simi Valley Freeway before Bayer got off in Simi Valley.

Along the way, officers said, Bayer tossed out a beer bottle and then blew out his own rear windshield while firing at pursuing California Highway Patrol officers in Rancho Cucamonga. No officers were hit, although one bullet did pierce a patrol car, authorities said.

Bayer fired shots again at pursuing officers in Simi Valley and crashed through a gate guarding the parking lot to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, police said.

Police eventually dropped a spike strip along the road, flattening the tires on Bayer’s car.

Bayer pulled his battered car into the dirt driveway of a cluster of modest homes on Leeds Street. Authorities said friends of Bayer live on the street. Bayer placed the gun to his head and yelled to police that they would either have to kill him or he would shoot himself or an officer, Rein said.

Mental health experts called to the scene failed to coax him out of his car. At 6 a.m., seven hours after the chase began, officers tossed tear gas into the car. Bayer got out and pointed his handgun at officers.

From a few blocks away, family members said, they heard the volley of pops from police weapons.

Bayer was rushed to Simi Valley Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

The dead man’s stepmother, June Tuttle, said Bayer was struggling to keep his Apple Valley business afloat. He and his father jointly owned a dental lab.

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Times staff writer Kate Folmar and correspondent Jennifer Hamm contributed to this story.